[ekianjo]

> If the original parent company disappeared would the fork be able to sustain its development and maintenance alone?

The counterexample is the Linux kernel. No single company can actually sustain its development, so in practice many companies work on it together with an agreed governance to direct where things go.

[afiori]

Indeed Linux is not forkable in practice, most current forks rely on the cooperation and coordination of the linux foundation at least partially.

For chrome as long as google exist I don't really see an industry consortium to invest in marginal improvements (considering also how the interested industry partners are likely heavy google customers)